Hello you,
I really hope February is treating you well?
Today’s letter is dedicated to you if you’re feeling at all afraid. I see you. (I’m even a little afraid to send this…but I’ll take the leap.)
When I was ten, our class went on the famous end of school ‘outward bound’ trip to Weardale.
One of the activities was a ropes course in the woods. In our borrowed safety helmets, we had to climb the rungs of a tall tree and step onto a wooden platform which was just big enough for a pair of feet.
Our task? Leap off, where we’d be safely caught by the leader man with the rope and gently lowered to the ground.
As each classmate clambered up, we cheered and whooped encouragement. I watched the nerves on their faces turn to grinning pride as they dared to jump into the North-East air, flying for a moment.
I don’t remember the climb but I do remember being up there, peering down at the audience of faces, all eyes on me. A soundtrack of encouraging calls; “Go on, Janelle! You can do it! Woo!”
But up there, everything was different. Realisation. The information landed on me, factual and in capital letters.
YOU CAN’T DO IT.
Every other person in year six could jump. I could not. The shame and disappointment were excruciating.
I attempted to bend my knees to trick myself into leaping. But a fact was a fact.
Everyone watched on as awkwardly I climbed back down the way I’d arrived (which in hindsight was probably harder and scarier than jumping).
I returned back to the hostel, knowing I was the only person who didn’t jump. Who couldn’t jump. Compared to everyone else, I was different.
This resurfaced memory is so hazy I can’t rely on the details. But it’s the feeling that is so familiar. The feeling that little Janelle had on the edge of that precipice with everyone watching. It’s with me again now.
I’m tentative, afraid. I don’t believe I can do it. Unsure of myself, I’m looking out at others to compare.
In other words, I’m shitting myself.
I’m in therapy at the moment and it’s been a whole mix of things as you’d expect. I don’t regret doing it (most of the time). Dots are connecting, I think that I am processing and healing. I know that I am understanding my story and how to love and take care of myself.
But part of me is tugging on my sleeve, wanting me to climb back down to the ground. “Why are you doing this, Janelle? What’s the point of dredging it all up?”
I’m in a hugely fortunate position that I’ve chosen to do this when I’m in a very settled and stable place. I’ve not entered into it in a crisis or to treat illness.
I’m being supported to look under the carpet at the stuff I’ve swept under there as a very valid coping mechanism. Stuff I was very happy to leave there or stuff I’d forgotten was there at all. It’s messy and dirty and, to continue with this metaphor, will clutter up and ruin the look of the room.
As I continue on this journey of excavating both my own stories and our collective stories, I’m getting closer to truths. Truth feels like something to keep aiming for. But it’s also scary and I want to run away.
What felt like solid ground beneath me isn’t that at all. So many of the places and people we are taught are trustworthy and have humans’ interests at heart, do not. What we are told over and over is solid ground isn’t that at all. There is so much dishonesty and so much harm. I have also benefitted a lot from these stories and systems too. Difficult truths.
So of course, it makes sense that I feel untethered and like I’m teetering on the edge of something rickety and unsafe.
Really, it’s a very human response.
Do you ever have that experience when you’re reading another writer’s words and a phrase just pops off the page and shoves you? Their words speak to the depths of you, bringing something to light that you hadn’t quite grasped yet.
I’ve just read Panenka by Rónán Hession (affiliate link) I’d bought this a while back at Ripon Bookshop based purely on the fact that I’d loved Rónán’s previous novel Leonard and Hungry Paul. I didn’t even really read the blurb (or click that there is a strong football theme). “This is a story about a man with a past, a man with headaches, a man with a chance to start again” – summarised one reviewer.
Some of the story is from the perspective of Panenka’s 28-year-old daughter Marie-Thérèse. In one of her chapters was this phrase;
“Life should always be like that. Resting safely, with someone looking after you, attending to the little indulgences that loved people enjoy.”
It instantly jumped out at me because I recognised this. It went on;
“…she would have liked to trust her weight to the love of another person like that. To fall back in absolute security.”
Unlike Marie-Thérèse, I do experience this kind of love, the kind where I can fall back and know that I’m held in absolute security.
As I carried on reading to the end of Panenka’s story, closing the cover with tears in my eyes, something had been reframed.
What if I’m feeling afraid because this time, I have leapt off the platform?
Maybe I’m in mid-air right now - pretty terrifying. But maybe I was able to jump because of the trust. The security that I’ve got a soft, safe place to land.
Present-day Janelle is still scared but she doesn’t believe the ‘I can’t’ as a fact anymore. (Growth!)
It’s okay that I’m scared sometimes. It’s part of being human. It’s okay that I’m looking things in the eye that I’ve avoided for so long.
It doesn’t mean it’s easy or linear but isn’t it amazing what we can do with the safety net of love to catch us?
Janelle x
Thank you for sharing such a brave and brilliant piece! Isn’t there something both terrifying and exciting about being mid air? And also something comforting in the quiet knowledge that you’ll land exactly where you need to be? Keep going x
I love that story of the leap, Janelle, and wonder at these long forgotten moments from youth that come back to us in adulthood to teach us, remind us or steer us in some important way? You are doing deep work, and it's not without jeopardy and/or pain, so I'm delighted you feel you're in the best possible place to do and and are surrounded by good people as you do.